


Nameday

by Lobb



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Dark Knight Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, I only write sad shit, Viera Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 07:48:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29996196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lobb/pseuds/Lobb
Summary: G’raha Tia’s heart is in the right place.  No one can find the heart to tell him the truth- not all Namedays are happy ones.
Kudos: 10





	Nameday

Warning: Some spoilers for FFXIV: Shadowbringers and content before it.

Summary: G’raha Tia’s heart is in the right place. No one can find the heart to tell him the truth- not all Namedays are happy ones.

Nameday

“Y’shtola.” Her attention was drawn, feline ears quirking as she looked up from a cup of Tataru’s tea. The approach of the red-headed Miqo’te male not unusual to their day-to-days since their return from the First. He often had questions of the other Scions, and inevitably that would mean he would wind up with herself or Urianger- meaning usually herself, since she had the glibness to shorten her speeches to a few sentences or less. “Have you seen our friend?”

“Your hero, you mean?” She asked, unable to help a wry smile despite the dourness budding in her heart. She knew her sight-blinded eyes probably didn’t well convey the same regret that painted her lips. “I’m afraid you won’t find her here- nor are you likely to see her for a few days.” Even relying on aethersight, she could tell a pout marred the young man’s face.

“What? T’is but it not her Nameday? Surely we should be celebrating- that’s what I was bound to ask of all of you anyway, to put together a party for-”

Bitter whimsy colored her expression, even as the Sorceress let her attention fall back unto her cup. “Best you forget about it. T’is not a new situation amongst us Scions.”

She tried to be gentle with her assertions for him to drop the topic, the thought- but she felt she was more brusque than she meant to be. Nonetheless, as the red-haired man walked away, she found her gaze turning outward from the Rising Stones, off into a distance beyond the stone walls.

Some people did not celebrate their birth- their life. No matter how much it was something to be celebrated. Some people only wanted to use the time to remember that which they had lost- that they had outlived by yet one more turn of the sun.

The Warrior of Light sometimes needed to just not be a hero- and they all respected that as much as they could.

\-------

The soft crunch of fresh snow under her greaves filled the air as she stepped up onto the zenith of the cliff. Quietly, she unholstered the great blade from her back and levered it into the earth below, letting it stand in testament.

There, she sunk down to one knee, sweeping her heavy armor-laden coat back behind her as it threatened to kick up and get in the way of her movement. A gauntlet-clad hand swept away remnants of ice creeping up the carved stone, unveiling what she already knew she would find.

Haurchefant Greystone  
Beloved Son and Brother,  
Protector of Ishgard

Halone welcome you to Her Halls,  
Greet Her with a smile

The quiet swept over her, sending the bangs of her winter white hair away from her chocolate-toned skin as mismatched eyes read the effigy for perhaps the hundredth time in her memory. Already, the chill of Coerthas’ night air washed over her lapine ears, making them tuck in tighter to her body out of reflex as she eased onto her other knee, settling back down upon her haunches.

Painted lips parted, then closed. She could only wonder why it was she could never find the power in her to say anything when she came here.

Maybe it was just that there was too much to say. Too much to tell him. Too aware that he was off somewhere else now- flirting, being gallant, telling terribly off-color jokes all his own with whatever amounted to Halone’s afterlife form of angels. If he had a choice in it, probably exceedingly beautiful women and exceedingly handsome men.

The thought brought a smile- a bitter like coffee one- to her purple-painted lips. Leave it to Haurchefant to think of an afterlife so contrary to what she presumed the Halonic faith would ever spread. It sounded like something out of a tawdry romance novel.

“You would have loved it.” She breathed out into the air, feeling like her own bassy voice was a whisper in the wind, even though she felt the strain of it- of her flexing vocal chords. “Some kind of pleasure palace, first thing that’d come from twixt your lips to every person you met would be “I know the Warrior of Light!” wouldn’t it be?”

After that, it just flowed out. Her adventures and more- her fears, her tears, her regrets- out here in the cold with no one to witness it. No one to tell her she was wrong or right, no one to judge her or hold it strong to her.

Just her, and her pain. Over a century old, and she found all of her age only the most worrying when it came to days like this. As she found herself speaking to a spirit on the winds, remembering everything she’d learned growing up- before she’d left the jungle and ventured out into the world.

War- battle- had been her life for longer than most people had been alive. Only now, at times like these, did she remember just how terrible that could be.

“Is it strange?” She asked, knowing she’d get only the answer of the chill of Coerthas as she spoke the question out loud, planting her other armor-clad hand atop the marker. “To be so surrounded, and to feel so alone.”

Even before she heard it, the long-dragged footfalls of another reached her ears, she stood, even as a new voice joined, uttering a plaintive- “No. No, it is not.” She turned, knowing that deeper voice altogether too well as she looked upon a well-dressed man of raven hair.

“T’is passing strange that I never fail to find you here this day, when you ought to be doing anything but.” The former Count Fortemps offered a wrinkled smile, and she couldn’t help but suppress a grimace in turn. “But if I were to ever look a gift horse in the mouth, I’d hope to find its teeth pearly white in cases alike this. If I have sons to come home to, one whom might as well be my own daughter visits me so rarely. You’ll forgive an old man his grievances for once, won’t you?”

Quietly, her head bowed- unable to muster the words in reply.

As he came closer, she heard the crunching of snow on the wind, knowing just down the trail languished a knight likely serving as a guard for the ‘retired’ man. Her eyes turned onto Lord Edmont as he stood nearby her, peering down unto the headstone with rich blue eyes. For all his jokes of them being as if blood, they could not be more different. She was twice his age for starters, with extra to go. Her own rich dark skin and colorfully mixed eyes and snow-white hair had so little in common with his own healthy peach and ink-black hair.

Part of her wanted to cry at the thought.

“If you ever were to feel alone, you would not have far to look to find someone who would endeavor to take that away from you.” He spoke, the cane in one hand perched deep in the snow. Her eyes moved away from him, and back unto the grave they both stood before. “You would never lack for a home that wouldn’t let you in with open arms, I daresay mine own is not the only one-”

She heard it, didn’t even need to look to see he’d turned to face her instead. “But I can say with an easy heart they will always want deeply for what mine wishes we could but give you. Now-” Finally, her gaze turned onto him as he turned back towards the road back down to the cliff, paved in her own footfalls, “Come home, my dear. I’m sure the boys have missed you terribly. You’ll catch your death of cold out here, and hot tea is much better than bitter tears.”

Bitter indeed was the smile, but as she walked behind him, her blade at her back, the Warrior of Light remembered that she was not alone.

Sometimes, you just needed the perspective. As she moved to hug her father’s waist and head back towards the Manor de Fortemps with him and his escort, she wished she could say she did not cry.

But she had always been terribly bad at lying.


End file.
